This invention relates to agricultural balers and more particularly to balers which produce rectangular bales of crop material as opposed to round bales.
In so-called rectangular balers, bales are formed by compressing wads of crop material in a bale case or chamber by a plunger which is reciprocable within the bale case; the wads of material being fed to the bale case from a feeder duct or chamber. In order for the wads of crop material acted upon by the plunger to form a cohesive whole, some resistance must be offered to the plunger and conventionally, this has been provided by the last bale to be formed which is maintained in the bale case after having been wrapped and tied with twine or the like. As the new bale is formed and progresses along the bale case, it pushes the already formed bale further along until the latter is finally discharged from the machine and the newly completed bale, which meanwhile also has been wrapped and tied, provides the plunger resistance for the next bale.
In the past, the full or partial bale still in the machine at the end of a baling session has been left therein so as to provide the plunger resistance at the commencement of the next baling session. Alternatively, if further baling is not due for some considerable time, then the full or partial bale has been manually pulled from the machine. However, these procedures cannot be followed, at least not without considerable difficulties, when crop with a high moisture content, such as silage, is being baled. This is because the full or partial bale left in the baler at the end of a baling session should not remain in the machine for any length of time, even overnight, because, firstly the crop material will commence to ferment with consequential deterioration of the crop material and secondly, the high moisture content increases significantly the onset of rust in the machine.
Furthermore, it is becoming commonplace for balers to be made larger so as to produce larger bales to an extent that the weight thereof is such that it is virtually impossible manually to pull even a partial bale from the machine. Apart from the weight, the coefficient of friction between the moist crop material and the bale case is relatively high, thus further hindering manual extraction of the bale from the machine. Also, with the advent of large rectangular balers producing large bales, the volume of a full bale is such that it comprises too much crop material to be left in the baler as this crop material may be be lost. This problem is particularly relevant for contract operators who may operate the machine for a plurality of farmers on the same day. These farmers may not want to accept the fact that a full bale is left in the baler after finishing their baling operation and is lost to them.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a convenient solution for all these problems in the form of providing a means for easily removing the last full bale and/or partial bale from the bale case at the end of each baling session.